Some more pictures!

We took this group of farmers from Sironj to Indian Institute of Vegetable Research (IIVR) in Varanasi for learning latest vegetable farming techniques.

 Kids from Kankerkhedi on a newly constructed Irrigation Well under PRADAN (DPIP project).

Soyabean thrashing going on at Kankerkhedi. Suresh and Amit in the picture...

A village meeting at Tarwariya  in presence of the SDM of Sironj

PRADAN Office in Sironj - The way it was on Independence Day, 2005! I had an unforgettable time of my life here....

Here is a video that I took in Kankerkhedi which I took when me and Madhukar visited Sironj last time in August 2005. Hindu Singh, Tofan Singh, Saudan Singh and lot of others whose name I have forgotten can be seen in this video along with me and Madhukar.

Sadly, it's almost a decade now and I have not been able to visit them again.

:-(

Slavery in Rural India?

(A flashback from Old days...) 

My days in PRADAN seem to an old yet fresh memory...almost a decade has passed since my days of working at the grassroots. Yet, every now and then, some or the other trigger causes me to go for a flashback like the typical Bollywood movie... 

Last Sunday during a dinner someone asked me about my views on Slavery in India.. and I was almost immediately transported to my days working in the villages in Madhya Pradesh, reminded of the harwaha system (also called Bandhua Majdoor/ Bonded laborer) there. I am sure that this system would still be going on in some part of the MP/country under the same or a different name. 

Harwaha (a landless laborer - one who tills the land for other, better off farmers) was a common sight in villages where I used to work as an NGO worker. Typically in this system, a person (in most cases belonging to Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribes) becomes subservient to the money lender for a fixed duration (usually a year) in lieu of a lump sum amount. It’s nearly being a slave as for an amount as less as Rs. 12,000 (in 2002-04) the harwaha has to work 10-12 hours a day in the field or the home of the person he has borrowed money from with little or no chances of taking leave. He can’t take up any other work and cannot go out without the permission of the money lender. 

It is clearly an exploitative situation. The big question is “why”? Why would a person agree to such harsh terms of working for such a less amount? I asked this to a harwaha that I was friends with and the answer I got was very simple, yet intelligent. 

Harwaha system, despite its inherent exploitative nature, is like an insurance policy for the ultra-poor. In a joint family of landless labourers (say of 4 brothers and their parents), its not guaranteed that everyone will get a job. Situation is dicey, sometimes they get job, sometimes they don’t. In such circumstance, one of the brother volunteers to become a harwaha to some big farmer. 

It serves two purposes: First is that it guarantees a lump sum amount for the family. Second is, in case of any emergency, the money lender can be approached for more money with a promise of serving one more year. 

These people are typically so poor that after the harvest they would sweep the field to pick up a kilo or two of the grains that got spilled in the field during harvesting. This system is full of financial, mental and even physical exploitation and to me is a civilized name for slavery in India. I hope and pray to God that no person or family should be forced to get into such exploitative system ever.

Happy Farmers in Kankerkhedi after a good Soyabean Crop (2003)

Urbanization - is it a solution to the misery of rural poor?

"Villagers should move to cities for their livelihood and crowd them. Since the government has not been able to provide good living conditions, basic amenities and livelihood opportunities in villages, it's just that these people try their luck in cities, while over crowding them and making the bureaucrats and politicians realize what is happening in the villages."

-these thoughts occurred to me many times when I was working with PRADAN in the villages. However, last year when I was working as an Area Sales Manager in Mumbai, I got opportunities to work in numerous slums here and observed the living conditions here. Although those living her do earn significantly higher than those who stay back in villages, the living conditions here are horrible.

Take, for example, Qureshi Nagar slums in Kurla East. Next to the Kurla railway station, this slum has got a central road with thickly populated neighborhoods on both sides. There are no drains and no sanitary facilities in most of these shanties. On side of the road is full of doctors, and the other full of butchers. Road itself is occupied by the vegetable sellers. Household garbage, rotten vegetables and remnants of butchered chicken and goat – it’s all dumped along the road. This, with the dense population and malnutrition, leads to loads of ill people. Result, for every one of 12-15 butchers sitting on one side of the central road, there is a doctor (quack most of the times) on the other side of the road, with rocking business.

Another case in point is the tea stall on the Mumbai local train platforms. If you look carefully, there is a wooded ladder next to each of these 10 ft X 6 ft stalls. If one climbs up, one would find thin mattresses, strings on which clothes are hanging and in some case a small table fan. This is all that 5-6 poor people have in the world on their name. They work in tea stalls in the day; sleep on its roof in night. They use the railway lines as their toilets and railway water pipes to bathe. They eat from the tea stall, save most of the money to send it home.

Net net, for the poor, choosing between village and city is the question of devil and deep sea. Most often, it's not possible for the rural poor to simply migrate to cities and live happily ever after.

Five Myths about Poverty in India!

Five Myths!
My career with NGOs spanned for five year and I learnt a lot during those. Some of the myths about underprivileged of India that I would like to negate are discussed in the following lines.

Myth #1- India is a poor country
It is not. Contrary to the belief, we are not a poor country, but there is a lot of skew ness in the distribution of wealth. This imbalance is not a result of a “bourgeois” rich and middle class conspiracy that my communist friends would like me to believe, but it is due to an acute system failure in areas where non-privileged population lives resulting into a situation where the poor don’t have basic amenities (health, education and employment) that enable them to avail the opportunities to grow. Government after government decides that these problems can be solved by allocating more money for these sections of the society, fooling the nation as they know fully well that this money gets pilfered in the way and gets back to them. Thus, more problems, more allocation of budget, more money for the netajis and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, communist politicians in this country are not different from the general lot of politicians who come to politics to serve themselves and not the country.

Myth #2: Getting more money is the answer to all the problems of India
Incorrect. Many of my friends who are doing well in their careers and are still compassionate for the poor of the country ask me about the ways they can contribute their money to help India get rid of the problems of poverty, ignorance and lack of basic amenities. To them, my message is- there is not dearth of money for the welfare of poor in India. There is, however, an acute shortage of political will to bring an end to these problems, a lack of character (integrity, honesty) in the implementing organizations in general.

Myth #3: There is nothing I can do as a well educated, ‘settled’ person- and to do something for the welfare of the country, I need to turn a monk- which of course I can’t!
False. India does not need your money, it needs you as an individual to come forward and help out. It is not necessary for you to turn a monk to do so. It is not necessary for you to leave that lucrative job and turn a full time NGO worker. The poor need you and your financial muscle to turn their luck They don’t want another ‘poor’ intellectual joining their ranks to exacerbate their existing problems. You can contribute by: voting religiously and asking others to vote too, volunteering part time for the good organizations, extend an helping hand to poor by teaching them and getting more like minded people to start working on a smaller scale rather than waiting for some miracle to happen on a big scale that would overnight solve all the problems of the country.

Myth #4: India is primarily an agriculture-based economy and multitudes can grow only when the agriculture grows
Incorrect. The agriculture sector in India today suffers with a number of problems- over employment, poor productivity, too much dependence on rains, lack of scientific attitude to count just a few of them. India needs industries and services sector to employ people from the rural and semi urban areas to help them come out of the vicious poverty that surrounds agriculture based communities today. No amount of government aid, loan waivers or promises are going to stop farmer suicides in Vidarbha unless there are alternative sources of employment in these areas (read- industries and services like rural BPOs and not sarkaari tamaashas –government sponsored eyewash like cottage industry, art and crafts etc).

Myth #5: Nothing can change this country-I am shifting to US, to hell with this country
Absolutely foolish thought. This country is in the state that is today because of us and not the vice-versa. It has got the super power potential and all the super-powers of the world know this (follow the international news for 2 weeks, and you would agree). If there is a problem, it is with us- as the people. We like to keep cribbing about the darkness rather than lighting a lamp. Running to US or some other countries would not solve your problem. You would remain a second class citizen no matter where you go and what you do. Moreover, the guilt of leaving the motherland in difficult times agonize you till your grave. Going abroad to work or for tourism is fine- it broadens one’s horizons but shifting your home entirely because you are afraid of tackling the problems at home is not only cowardly but also thankless.

Enough of Myths; now the Action points!
Like a character in Hindi Movie “Rang de Basanti” said- “Koi country great hota nahin hai, use great banana padta hai” (No country is great from the beginning- it has to be made great over a period of time). Couple of my suggestions as a NGO person about the action points with which you can contribute in improving the conditions of our country.

Action point#1: Take some action-no matter how small it is!
Volunteer as a teacher on Saturdays in the nearest NGO run school located in the slums. Sponsor a poor child’s health or education for one year.

Action point#2: Awaken your near and dear ones
Once you start working for a cause, no matter how small it is, discuss or send emails to all your near and dear ones- your brothers, sisters, parents, spouse, cousins, uncles and aunties, your close and distant friends, your colleagues- and try to get them thinking about these issues and eventually start working for some small cause.

Action point#3: Educate others about social issues
Write letters in the newspaper. The letters to editor are followed by other like minded people who are trying to read compatriots’ mind on the burning issues. They are also followed by the public grievances departments of the government. Spread awareness by writing in these spaces- but be careful not to write generalist or hateful messages that would be immediately banned from being published. You can also write your views in the online discussion boards.

Action point#4: Help Indians from other states, castes, creed and regions
Try to help people who are different from you. Regionalism is another big obstacle in growth of our country. When you help an Indian who is radically different from you, you make him/her a goodwill ambassador of India at large to his region/caste/creed.

Action point#5: Be optimistic
Don’t ever think that our country would remain the way it is for ever. All countries have had their share of problems that they have fought with and overcome – or are even struggling with today. Our country is no different. By keeping a positive outlook towards the solution of the problems and trying consciously to solve them, we can overcome today’s problem. Talking about our country in poor light not just brings your and others morale down it also stops us from taking any corrective action to overcome the present scenario.

PRADAN Memoirs- Alone in the forest in a scary night

It was a rainy night in October 2002- and I was returning from village Chaapu (some 16 kilometers from Sironj, where I lived during my stint with PRADAN). I had gone to Chappu to try for the revival of a Women Self Help Group constituted of very poor women of Gond Tribe. I had a very bad time in convincing them to come for the meeting and was only partially successful. It was late already about 10 in the night and I was in a very foul mood that day. It was drizzling, and my host in Chaapu- Umarao Singh asked me a to stay overnight as the rains would have ruined the dirt tracks of villages that connected it to highway- some 10 kilometers away.

However, highly pissed that I was, being unable to convince the women of village to run the SHG smoothly; I ignored his suggestion and decided to go back, taking the route through Ricchan village. Umrao Singh did not agree but he had no option but to agree as I had decided to go back, come what may.

He accompanied me on my bike (a 100 CC Hero Honda Splendor) till Ricchan as there was a big, half dug irrigation well next to the dirt track in Ricchan and Umrao feared that I may drop into it with the bike in the night- as it was drizzling and visibility was poor. He went back from Ricchan after explaining me the way from there to the highway- and I only 24 at that time could have cared less for the rain, night and mud on the dirt track. I took the way he told me and reached a part of forest- mostly scrubs and some trees here and there- deserted for almost 3 kilometers on both sides. It was almost 10.30 by now and there were no lights other than the headlight of my bike.

The drizzle had converted into downpour and I had to drive slowly to avoid the bike slipping into to mud. Suddenly, in the middle of no where, I realized that the front wheel of my bike has gone immobile.

Imagine- 10.30 in the night, heavy rains, alone in the forest and then this happens! I must confess that I got scared thinking it to be some super natural phenomenon. Thank God that I did not loose my presence of mind. I stalled the vehicle on the main stand while keeping its engine running and tried to have a look on the front wheel in the dim light reflecting from the ground.

Mud had filled the gap between the mudguard and tyre of the front wheel, and there was no room for the wheel to rotate. Thus, it had seized. I relaxed- so there were no ghosts after all, just some mud in the wheel! But then, there was night, there was heavy rain and the fact remained that I was in the middle of a degraded forest with wildlife at 11ish in the night.

I thought about breaking the mud guard with a stone, but then realized that it would cost me a good 700-800 bucks to replace it- and being an apprentice with Rs 8000 p.m stipend, I could not have afforded it.

"Think of something economical"- I told my self!

So glad, Hero Honda guys keep something called Utility Box just above the engine- i rushed for it and opened it. There was indeed a tool box and a first aid kit inside- and under those circumstances, I would have needed both of them dearly!

I took out the tool box- under the illumination of the headlight I got what I needed - a screwdriver and a wrench. I tried to scrape the mud out of the wheel but it was not successful. Even if it had, I had to go another 5 kilometers minimum in the muddy dirt paths and could not have afforded to get the wheel seized in mudguard again. I decided to go the rural way- take the damn thing off!

So, bending down on my knees in the heavy downpour, I started unscrewing the nuts holding the mudguard. There were some sounds coming from nearby bushes and it took a lot of my will power to convince myself that this is something like hare or wild fowl and nothing dangerous creatures. I learnt the patience and working with a cool head that night in the middle of nowhere, 11 in the night, alone in a degraded forest.

I cooly took the mudguard off, kept it on my shoulders and started driving the bike towards the highway. Without a mud guard all the mud from ground was getting splashed at my face and chest, but I was glad that I was going to get out of that scary place. After struggling for another half an hour or so, I would the road going to Sironj and drove slowly to my residence well pat midnight. I parked the bike in the front yard and went to sleep after a shower and change of clothes.


Epilogue

Next morning, my landlady called me down from my room on the first floor. rubbing my sleepy eyes I cam down to find her staring at my bike. No part of my bike was visible save for a thick layer of mud from the handle to rear brake lights.

"Had you fallen into a pit filled with mud last night?"- She asked, with bewildered looks.

"Something of that sort, yes"- I said and went back to my cozy and dry sleeping bag.

Me on my faithful Hero Honda Splendor - An Awesome Companion (2004)

The day we demolished a dam with our bare hands!

It was the rain season of 2003- my friend Madhukar had completed the construction of an earthen dam in Village Madagan with lots of trouble. The dam was some 80 meters long and was constructed at a very suitable site, but deemed unfit earlier because of the rocks in the place. It took almost a year, more than 5000 man hours, a bulldozer and finally an earth excavator to build the dam which would feed the parched fields of some 100 banjara (nomadic tribe) families and bring them out of the clutches of poverty. When it was completed, it was a cause of celebration- both to us, the team at PRADAN and more to the villagers for whom it was nothing short of a dream come true.

Then, in July 2003, Madhukar went away for a training program to Delhi. Our team leader was also not present that day in office when in the afternoon some villagers from Madagan came rushing and told that the because of continuous rains, the dam is full up to the brink and if it rains any further, the water would flow over the dam, breaching its bund and reducing it into a heap of rubble.

I asked Laxman, a civil engineer by profession (who had joined the same week) to come with me for an inspection of the site. We reached there in about an hour through muddy grounds and found that villagers were right indeed. The water level was only about a feet below the top of the dam. It was surprising as there was a provision of a spillway, that acts as safety valve for the dam to let the water flow out safely and effortlessly after dam gets filled up to a particular level, making sure that the water never reaches the top of the dam. Then why was it happening?

To find out, we went to the spillway to find that the local contractor working on the dam had made the level of the floor of the spill way higher than what it should have been. this and the reason that the soil of the dam had compacted during the rains were the reason for the current situation.

We were in a dilemma what to do- remaking the spillway would take a lot of time and may be by then the dam itself would be breached. The villagers were looking at us, waiting for our decision. Since I was older in the organization- the responsibility came to me to ensure the safety of the dam.

I had once asked about the cost of the dam to Madhukar and he had told me that it was some where around 200,000 rupees. He had also told me that the spillway had cost us some 14,000 rupees. Under the circumstances, the natural thought came to me- to sacrifice a 14,000 rupees structure to save the bigger, 200,000 rupees structure.

I concluded that we will have to demolish the floor of spillway. But how? It was made of stones with a plaster of cement concrete on the floor and sides. Getting laborers or explosives to break it was impossible as the day was setting.

I had a quick look at the floor of the spill way and thought - may be we can break it. But how? There was no implements (spades etc) available. We were quite far from the village. I saw a rock lying on one side of spillway and decided to try breaking floor with it. I raised it high over my head with both my hands and slammed it on the floor with all my might- lo and behold!

There was a crack in the floor- thanks to the poor work done by the local contractor! Another try -more cracks! Then I decided that this is how to do it- break the floor with the rocks and then pull out the stone under the floor to make the spillway deeper. Laxman also helped me out- and we started demolishing the spillway of the dam with our bare hands!

Sometime later, a few villagers passing by saw us working to save their dam- they lent us their hand and some of them even got the spades from the village after a while. Before sundown, the floor of the spillway was broken totally- mostly through the bare hands of me and my colleague. The stone of its floor were excavated and soon the water was flowing out of the dam smoothly as originally designed. Villagers around us were smiling ear to ear and so were we.

After all, who gets an opportunity to demolish a dam with their bare hands every other day?

An article on IIFMites, Development and Market Forces for Sampark, IIFM magazine

Completing 4 years of my sojourn in the development sector almost six years after passing through the lofty IIFM gate (the water tank) for the first time, I am reflecting about how the journey has been so far and what lies ahead for me… or rather, for us.

Always keen to work for the development sector since my graduation days, I joined the 13th Batch of IIFM in June 2000. Experiencing the course in the next two years made me sure that I was meant for the grassroots and so did both my OTs with grassroots organizations – SRIJAN and PRADAN. In the same spirit, I joined PRADAN in 2002 just 15 days after passing out from IIFM.

I worked with some of the poorest people of the country in the Vidisha Project of PRADAN, in a small place called Sironj. It was a real eye opener for me – I had no idea how hollow all claims of development, cried hoarse by the media, were. I witnessed the abject poverty resulting from a total failure of the development system – lack of basic amenities (health, education facilities, safe drinking water and proper roads existing only on paper) and rampant corruption in government agencies. My studies in Forest management were left behind somewhere; there was no forest to manage and in face of such grave deficiencies, even talking about rejuvenating the barren forest land felt criminal to me.

For a little more than two years that I worked there before leaving the job on the face of serious health complications, every day approached me with a new learning, not just as a development professional, but as a human being. One of the many things I was unable to understand was how a human being could exploit another in such a blatant manner! How someone could rob a penniless peasant for providing a copy of land records to him? How a health worker could refuse to visit his villages in spite of knowing about a disease killing infants like an unrestrained banshee? I was humbled as a human being; I felt ashamed witnessing it as a mute spectator. I did whatever I could within my capacity as a development worker and as a human being, but soon realized that the problem was not just the providers of amenities and the services. It was the community as well.

Centuries of colonial rule of the British has made the once self-reliant Indian villages and its community totally dependent on the system (read Government). Once all the resources of the village used to belong to the community. But in the beginning of the 19th century the market, and the resource-hungry British Government, took over all of them – land, water, forests, everything – and made the community totally dependent on it. Due to a conflict in interest between the government and the community, a series of famines followed, in which more that 85 million Indians lost their lives – not to disease, not to invasion, but to the greed of a colonial power. Unfortunately, no one even talks about these unfortunate compatriots who lost their lives to hunger then. Today, famines may have stopped, but the dependency has not. In Kankerkhedi, my first village in PRADAN, which has a population of 150, 14 people including infants lost their lives in just one year due to water borne diseases, yet despite having sufficient funds I could not get a hand pump dug there for a full year, as the community simply refused to deposit Rs.2500 as part of their contribution, mandatory in the Project in which I was working. They demanded to know the reason they had to pay when the government provided everything free (at least in principle, with all bribes and everything!).

Now, this particular aspect of the process of development makes it a little difficult. It is comparatively easy to create infrastructure – roads, houses, schools, wells, dams, etc. – but changing the attitude of a community is an arduous task. It is a slow process and all the more difficult when you are trying to do it in an environment which is otherwise exploiting and corrupt – the poor being taken for a ride by traders and big landlords, politicians, government servants and the mushrooming fly-by-night NGOs in connivance with each other.

However, in the recent past we have seen the attitudes of Indian communities being changed in many instances. The same market forces that once ravaged Indian villages in the form of the British East India Company are today changing the scenario of urban and rural India. A few decades back no one had heard of Maggie Noodles, Pepsi or Coca Cola. Today, colas have penetrated deep inside the Indian hinterland. At times you may not find safe drinking water in some remote corners of the country, but the mighty cola is omnipresent (never mind the CSE revelations)! Thus, we have witnessed that the community attitude can be changed in relatively less time, but it needs specific factors like an environment promoting change, desire and motivation to change, a foolproof strategy and huge resources to bring about such a change. This does happen, where market forces decide to provide a particular service or product in rural areas – not for charity but for profits.

The biggest and most visible example today is that of the mobile phone services. I remember, during my schooldays in the late eighties and early nineties there used to be a long waiting list for getting a phone connection. One had to either approach a neta or pay bribes to get a phone connection. Hardly two years ago in Sironj mobile phone was unheard of. Today I frequently receive calls from the Sarpanch of one of the villages who, calling from his cell phone, asks me which new Yojana is being dispatched by the Sarkaar in Dilli! Not just he, but many in the villages where I used to work have got mobile phones now, which is not a luxury for them but a boon to their remote villages that are cut off from the rest of the country for many months every year during rains.

Unlike NGOs (which have limited resources, vision and motivation) and the government (with its red-tapism, attitudinal and human resource problems), the corporate sector has huge resources, man power, access to the latest knowhow and the biggest asset – an ability to think out-of-the-box to achieve their goal. The biggest challenge in this case is how to link the problems in rural India to the market forces. In other words, how a problem of rural India can be translated into a corporate revenue model, thus transforming the problem itself into a solution. Can the human resources of villages be tapped as in China? Can our agricultural productivity be raised as in Brazil? Can there exist local BPOs operating from rural India? Can there be a wind power park on the coast of Orissa? Can there be a thousand megawatt super solar power plant in vast, sunny spans of the Thar Desert? All these ideas may sound impractical and too dreamy, but we have to remember, before petroleum was discovered, the Middle East was just another desert!

Here lies a great opportunity for IIFMites. With our exposure to rural India and its problems and our training in management, we can act as a bridge between the rural issues and the market forces. If some of us can come up with a feasible revenue model of linking one of these issues and converting it into an opportunity for the Indian corporate sector which is currently undergoing a boom, there is no dearth of capital for an off-track, yet feasible business model. The biggest example here is the foray of Reliance Industries and Bharti Group into the agribusiness sector with thousands of crores of capital. Another good example is the advances of ICICI Bank Ltd in rural banking and microfinance, which will literally capture the rural credit market in the years to come. To set an example as well as benchmarks within the IIFM fraternity, some IIFMites have already pioneered developing the linkage between the process of development and market forces. Vineet Rai (PFM 1996) with Aavishkaar, Mumbai; Sameer Singh (PFM 2001) with IFC, New Delhi; Deepak Mitra (PFM 2002) with Phillips India Ltd., Gurgaon – are a few among many in this growing genre of IIFMites, who are noted for having performed exceedingly well in this relatively less traveled path for IIFMites.

For the current IIFM batches, some more inputs from IIFM – in terms of some research in this aspect, more related courses of enhanced quality, distinguished visiting faculty from the industry – would go a long way in turning IIFM students into stalwarts of a new breed of industries: hybrids of corporate spirit and rural resources. At the same time, the students too have a major responsibility in bringing about this change. Rather than considering our course in IIFM as a ‘paid holiday’ (as one of my seniors told me on my first day at IIFM), we need to widen our horizons of knowledge working hard 24X7, keeping our eyes and ears open, reading and learning latest developments and looking for opportunities that would take us beyond the current trends in IIFM, lest the ‘paid holiday’ (sic) turns into a holiday that has to be paid for all through one’s life!

For those of us who have already passed out, probably the need of the hour is that the entrepreneurs among us come up with an idea out of their experiences in rural India and understanding of Indian economic scenario as of now. The pioneers in this venture are most likely going to leave a lasting impression on the Indian economy and society in the days to come. This is the ultimate opportunity to establish brand IIFM in Indian corporate and development sector with a paradigm shift in the perception of others for us, once and for all.